


'tis the damn season

by iwritetrash



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Childhood Friends, Christmas fic, Famous Alfred, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mutual Pining, Notting Hill-esque if Notting Hill was about childhood friends and was set at christmas, friends to strangers to lovers, sorry :/ - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritetrash/pseuds/iwritetrash
Summary: “How long are you home?” Edward asks as they pull up outside his house. So far, they’ve steered clear of the future, and making plans, because, at some point in the near future, Alfred’s going back across the ocean and Edward isn’t, so getting invested is a fool’s errand.But.“I’m flying back the day after boxing day.”Edward swallows. That’s only ten days away. “So soon?”~when your famous ex-best friend comes home for the holidays
Relationships: Edward Drummond (1792-1843)/Alfred Paget (1816-1888)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	'tis the damn season

**Author's Note:**

> look im a little bit embarrassed that i've returned from an incredibly long hiatus with a fic based on a taylor swift song. but it's christmas, and, as the title says, 'tis the damn season, so i won't be accepting any criticism for my taylor swift listening habits.
> 
> but yeah so if you're into your taylor swift, this is based on 'tis the damn season and dorothea (with a few other songs popping in every now and then idk i've been playing her new albums on repeat so). if you don't care about/don't like taylor swift that's also cool bc the only way the song plays into the fic is story inspiration.
> 
> also this takes place in alternate 2020 where 'rona didn't happen bc im not about to deal with social distancing etc in the fic yk how it is. 
> 
> anyway, merry christmas everyone! enjoy!

Edward has his scarf tucked up close around his chin and a woolly hat pulled down over his forehead, and he’s thankful for the fresh coffee he’s just bought, radiating heat through the thin takeaway cup and keeping his hands warm because he’d been silly enough not to put gloves on before he left the house. His mum would definitely say ‘I told you so’ if he mentioned it to her, as if he was still a teenager and not a 27 year old who was running his own life quite successfully, lack of gloves aside.

He’s starting to regret the decision to walk to the café instead of driving, but at the time he’d been glad for a chance to stretch his legs and see the village while he was home for Christmas. Now, however, with the cold climbing up his coat-sleeves and soaking through his very impractical shoes, he’s not too sure it’s worth it.

Until he spots a familiar flash of blonde hair attempting to wedge an impressively large collection of shopping bags into his car boot.

For a moment Edward second guesses himself, wondering if it’s just his imagination playing trick on him – it wouldn’t be the first time, after all, and besides, Alfred Paget hasn’t been seen at home for years. But then the man glances around quickly, and Edward manages to get a good look at his face and _oh_.

Edward stops cold in his tracks next to the car he realises on second glance that he recognises too.

“Alfred?” he asks, when he manages to get his tongue working again.

Alfred ducks his head lower as he continues to wrestle with the shopping bags, deliberately tilting his face out of view with practiced ease as he speaks in a voice pitched an octave lower than usual. (Well, Edward thinks it’s pitched lower than usual. It’s been a while since he heard Alfred speak.)

“Um, who?” Alfred asks, face still angled away, “I think you have the wrong guy.”

Edward huffs out a small laugh. “Well, random stranger, are you stealing Alfred’s parent’s car?”

Alfred turns to him, his guard dropped and his eyes wide, before they soften as they land on his face. “Edward,” he says, relief colouring his words, which Edward tries not to invest too much hope in. “How’d you know this was my parent’s car?”

“Aside from it being the same make and model you used to drive us around in when you just got your license?” Edward asks, settling easily into their old patterns. “The dent on the bumper from when you backed into the lamppost outside my house,” Edward says, nodding at the dent Alfred’s parents never got fixed. He’s surprised the Pagets still even have that car, with the amount of dents it had accumulated over the years, or that Alfred was driving _this_ car, instead of a glossy sports car that cost three times Edward’s salary.

Alfred is watching him curiously when Edward looks back up, and he realises that perhaps he’s being too familiar. It’s been seven years since they last spoke, after all, since Alfred got his big break in a big Hollywood production and flew off to become a superstar and left his old life behind.

Edward realises he’s been staring at Alfred’s face for a bit too long, so he gestures at him vaguely with his coffee cup. “You wear glasses now,” he says. It’s an observation more than a question but it’s all he can come up at the moment, face to face with his former best friend turned big Hollywood name.

“Ah, I, uh, they’re fake,” Alfred says, reaching up to fidget with them somewhat sheepishly. “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”

“Right,” Edward says, eyes slightly narrowed. It’ll take a lot more than fake glasses to make Alfred unrecognisable, even if Edward does have a bit of an unfair advantage as his ex-best friend. But perhaps that explains the old car. One mystery solved, and hundreds left to unravel. “You’re, um, you’re something of a big deal now, huh?” Edward adds lamely.

Understatement of the _goddamn_ century. Alfred’s face seems to be plastered on every single bus stop and billboard, and he’s the star of every show or movie Edward wants to watch. Which is a real pain, considering Edward likes to avoid Alfred’s entire filmography, because it digs up a lot of old heartache and memories that he’d rather not relive. Edward still harbours some resentment over the fact that he couldn’t watch the new _Dorian Gray_ tv series because Alfred was playing the titular character.

Alfred just chuckles lightly. “Guess so,” he says, turning his attention back to the shopping bags, finally managing to arrange them so they fit properly into the boot and pulling it shut.

“I’m sorry, I guess I’m just surprised to see you back here.” Edward immediately regrets it, feeling like he’s just shoved his foot right in his mouth. He’s barely been talking to Alfred for two minutes and he’s already making accidental digs about Alfred’s longstanding absence from the village they’d grown up in.

If Alfred’s bothered by it, he doesn’t show it. Then again, he’s an actor. It’s kind of his job. “I’m surprised too,” he says, his eyes flashing with something sad that Edward can still make out, even through those stupid fake glasses.

Edward wants to ask, but he reminds himself silently that it’s not his place anymore; it hasn’t been his place for seven years now, so, whatever Alfred’s dealing with, it’s none of his business.

“What are you up to today, then?” Edward asks instead, nodding to the closed boot.

Alfred grimaces slightly. “I’ve got a list from my mum of Christmas errands to run. I think it’s punishment for skipping so many family Christmases before.”

Edward can’t help but laugh. If Charlotte Paget is anything like he remembers her, then Alfred is probably right.

“What are you up to?” Alfred asks in return, his eyes glittering with something that feels familiar, summoning up old feelings in the pit of Edward’s stomach.

“Nothing really. I just walked over to get a coffee,” Edward replies, gesturing again with his coffee cup, this time back in the direction of the café he’d come from. As he does, he realises it was one of their old haunts when they were teenagers with homework to struggle through and exams to cram for.

If the small smile on Alfred’s face as his eyes follow Edward’s gesture is anything to go by, he remembers it too.

Alfred’s face is thinner than Edward remembers, and his cheekbones are more pronounced, the last of his teenage baby-fat having melted away to leave sharp lines and shadows. It might have something to do with the diet and training regime Alfred had been bitching about the last time they’d spoke on the phone all those years ago, back when he’d only just left. But, then again, Edward doesn’t even know if he’s even still following the same regime, because it’s been _seven fucking years_ and he has no idea what’s going on in Alfred’s life anymore, and he wishes that didn’t make him long to relearn it all over again.

“You could join me, if you like,” Alfred says, drawing Edward out of his reverie.

Edward blinks at him for a moment, trying to trace back through the conversation to work out what Alfred means.

“With the errands,” Alfred clarifies quickly. “I could use an extra pair of hands carrying things,” he says, leaning against his car like he’s trying a little too hard to sound nonchalant. “If you’ve got nothing else to do, I guess.”

Edward is oddly reassured by the knowledge that he’s not the only one finding this all a little bit weird. He’s also glad he’s not the only one that doesn’t want this to end yet.

He gives Alfred a warm smile and silently apologises to his past self for falling right back into all his old traps. “Where to first?”

* * *

Alfred had forgotten how nice it was to have Edward around.

Well, perhaps it was less that he’d forgotten and more that he’d deliberately chosen not to think about it.

Things are still the same, even after all this time. The way he throws his head back laughing, the way his hair falls across his forehead no matter how many times he pushes it back, the way he pushes doors open and holds them for Alfred to let him in first.

There are mannerisms he doesn’t recognise too, though. Jokes which are no longer familiar, expressions which aren’t as easy to read as they once were. Alfred used to know Edward’s face better than his own, used to be able to read his thoughts on his face like reading a familiar book. Now, there are jarring moments where he has absolutely no idea what’s going on inside his head.

Seven years is a long time to be apart, and there’s a voice in the back of his head whispering that he doesn’t even know Edward anymore. Not really, no matter how many of Edward’s nervous ticks he remembers. He doesn’t know all the relationships and life events which have shifted inch by inch the pillars of Edward’s personality to make him the man stood in front of Alfred today. All he knows is the man he left behind.

Edward is taller now, broader too. His jaw line more defined. He’s more confident than he had been as a nervous teenager. His hair is longer than he’d seen it since they were seven years old. There’s a faint scar near Edward’s hairline that he doesn’t know the story behind. There’s even the faintest beginnings of laughter lines creasing the corners of his eyes.

Alfred has no doubt Edward is cataloguing his differences too, silently noting them as they drift from shop to shop, picking up a Christmas wreath and placing an order with the butcher for a turkey they can collect on Christmas Eve and buying new strings of lights because the bulbs in the old ones have finally given out.

They’re chatting easily as they go, carefully avoiding by unspoken agreement anything which might break the fragile peace they’ve brokered after seven years of silence.

It’s not like things had ended on a bad note between them. They’d just… slowly drifted apart, between the 8 hour time difference and Alfred’s busy filming schedule and Edward’s heavy workload in his final year at uni, until eventually one day they’d just… stopped talking.

It had happened so slowly Alfred hadn’t even realised what was going on until filming finished and Edward’s absence became suddenly more apparent in the gaping expanse of time he was suddenly faced with in a city full of strangers. But by that point, it had felt too late to try and reach out and recover things, and before he knew it he was being whisked off on press tours, and he was pouring himself into new projects and new roles to fill that Edward’s shaped void, and the years floated by and he started to forget someone else once occupied that space in his life.

Until now.

And here they are, picking up where they left off, pretending no time has passed at all, and they can carry on as friends like nothing has changed between them. Like _they_ haven’t changed. It’s simultaneously the best and worst thing Alfred could have hoped for, when he dreamed of seeing Edward again.

Edward lends Alfred his woolly hat, after he makes fun of Alfred’s poor attempt at a disguise again, and he offers his scarf too to cover more of his face, but Alfred draws the line there, insisting that Edward will get cold without it. Besides, he knows it’ll smell like Edward – the new Edward, with his grown-up cologne, and his shampoo that doesn’t smell the same as the one he’d used when they were younger – and he doesn’t think he’ll ever want to give it back if it does. The hat is bad enough.

Still, Alfred is grateful. Someone got a photo of him asleep on the plane and posted it on Twitter, which is extremely irritating, not just because it’s a terrible picture, but also because now everyone knows about his not-so-secret trip back home to England. He’d had to call in a favour from airport security to sneak him out through a back exit so he wouldn’t get mobbed at the arrival gate, and luckily Heathrow airport is ambiguous enough that people haven’t worked out where he is yet.

That hasn’t stopped the speculation from his fans, though, about top secret projects and new filming locations. It’s all over Twitter, even though he’s supposedly on a social media break right now, and his mentions are full of people asking if there’s a surprise announcement coming soon.

It’s his own fault for being so impulsive – his publicist is going to have a damn field day if he doesn’t get better at covering his tracks – but he’d needed a long-overdue break from LA and his fake friends and his (now) ex-boyfriend.

Alex had been nice enough at first; he was an attractive, high profile model who gave him a good publicity boost, and looked good on his arm at parties and award shows. But, as time wore on, the cracks in their relationship started to show, one after the other, until Alex had screamed at a waiter who’d accidentally dripped condensation from a wine bottle onto Alex’s sleeve, and Alfred had realised once and for all that his boyfriend was an asshole, and he honestly couldn’t think of one good reason why they were even together anymore.

So he’d called it quits and jumped on the first flight home. The chill of English Christmastime was a welcome change from the bright California sun, and his family were a nice trade for his sun-kissed, picture-perfect LA friends, not one of whom had bothered to call or text him since he’d left.

And Edward…

Alfred looks over at where Edward is holding two bottles of red wine, talking to the manager about the merits of different vintages while Alfred loiters in the back of the shop with his face out of view so he doesn’t have to worry about being spotted.

He’s glad to see Edward too.

* * *

Alfred insists on driving him home.  
  
Edward tries to protest – he’d walked here and he’s fine to walk back – but it’s getting dark by the time they finish the list of errands, and it’s also getting colder. Alfred is absolutely resolute, insisting it’s the least he can do after all of Edward’s help, and eventually Edward is forced to cave to his will.

It’s funny, Edward’s even missed their silly little bickering.

The ride home is filled with the same idle chatter they’ve filled the rest of the day with. Alfred tells a story about accidentally tripping up Harry Styles on a red carpet, and Edward tells him about his four sleepless days of political reporting during the US election. Alfred had winced slightly when Edward had mentioned that they’d flown him out to DC to get first-hand information for his column. But, then, Alfred’s been back to the UK hundreds of times for filming and he’s never bothered to reach out. It’s not like Edward was even anywhere near LA. He could hardly have texted Alfred and asked to get brunch or something when he was on the opposite side of the country.

Still, he decides to steer clear of stuff like that from now on, in the interests of keeping the peace.

“How long are you home?” Edward asks as they pull up outside his house. So far, they’ve steered clear of the future, and making plans, because, at some point in the near future, Alfred’s going back across the ocean and Edward isn’t, so getting invested is a fool’s errand.

But.

“I’m flying back the day after boxing day.”

Edward swallows. That’s only ten days away. “So soon?”

Alfred’s expression is inscrutable in the half-light cast by the streetlamps outside. “Yeah, well filming starts up again at the beginning of January, and I promised my gorgeous co-star, Harriet, that I’d be at her New Year’s Eve party, and the jet-lag never gets any easier, so,” Alfred finishes with a shrug.

Of course, Edward thinks. Alfred has his whole glamourous life to get back to, of parties and champagne and glittering celebrities. Him popping home for Christmas doesn’t change any of that.

Still. Edward can’t help himself. “We could, um, we could get coffee tomorrow, if you like?” Edward asks, and regrets it immediately. _Don’t invest, don’t make plans_.

Alfred, however, just offers him a soft, genuine smile. “I’d like that.”

He watches Edward in silence for a moment, and Edward can’t help but feel absolutely frozen under the weight of his stare, and then Alfred is leaning across the car, over the gearstick, which must be digging into his stomach at this angle, and cupping Edward’s cheek in his hand to pull him into a sweet, gentle kiss that tastes like the wine samples they’d spent half an hour mulling over.

It can’t last any longer than a few seconds, but when Alfred pulls back it feels as though Edward’s entire world has shifted.

Through his kiss muddled thoughts, Edward manages to rediscover the ability to speak, blinking at Alfred as he asks, “is that some LA quirk you’ve picked up?”

Alfred’s laugh is loud and warm, filling the car up and banishing any worries Edward might have about getting invested, and Alfred leaving, and really anything outside of this moment right now in Alfred’s parent’s car. He feels like he’s 17 again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Edward,” Alfred says, light catching on his smile.

Still dazed, Edward stumbles up to his door, only narrowly avoiding humiliating himself by slipping on a patch of ice which has formed on the path. When he glances back he half-expects Alfred’s car to have disappeared and taken any evidence of the day with it, but he’s still there, parked up and watching Edward get to his door safely.

He knows full well that his siblings are going to give him so much shit for the dopey grin on his face, and his mum is definitely going to have something to say about him being out all day when he said he was just popping out for a coffee, but, just for the moment, he doesn’t care.

When he climbs into bed that night, he’s still half convinced that it was all a dream. Because, really, how many times has he dreamed and wished and hoped that Alfred might come back in the past seven years? And how many more times had he fantasised about Alfred kissing him in that very car when he was a teenager with a crush on his best friend? The whole day seems too good to be true.

But, despite it all, when he wakes up in the morning, it’s to a text from Alfred offering to pick him up at 11.

So.

Not a dream, then.

* * *

Things all pick up quite quickly after that.

With only ten days to burn, they spend almost every second they can steal away from their families at each other’s sides, visiting all their old haunts from their teen years and driving full speed down country lanes and pulling over at the side of the road to make out in the backseat; hours fly away in bookshop cafés and firelit pubs, and Edward’s been spending his nights in Alfred’s bed just to climb out of the window at the crack of dawn.

And Edward doesn’t even mind that it’s a secret, really. It doesn’t bother him that Alfred won’t hold his hand in public unless he’s got his stupid glasses on and one of Edward’s woolly hats (because apparently he’d neglected to bring any of his own and couldn’t possibly buy one with all the money he has lying around) pulled down low over his head, because Edward gets it. He doesn’t really want to be dragged into the limelight any more than Alfred does if he’s being honest with himself.

And, as for their families, he doesn’t want them getting invested in something which is obviously temporary. It’s bad enough that _he’s_ getting invested.

They’ve been tiptoeing around it, ignoring by unspoken agreement that this, whatever _this_ is, will end when Alfred goes back to LA and leaves Edward behind again. The past, too, is kept largely off limits, because they both know that they hold too much pain there to unpack in the short time they have.

The present, however, they can savour, free from future obligations and old wounds. It’s just the two of them. Alfred calls him darling and Edward calls him dear, and Alfred holds his hand while Edward drives and Edward kisses him goodnight and they let it all happen, just for the ten days Alfred is home.

And late one night, when Alfred must have thought Edward was asleep, he’d whispered against Edward’s skin, “don’t ask me to stay,” and traced one finger over the curve of his lips, and Edward hadn’t dared stir and break the moment, but he’d known what it meant; that Alfred was afraid if Edward asked him then he might just say yes, and it might just break them both when he couldn’t.

On a Sunday morning, five days before Christmas and exactly one week before Alfred is leaving, Edward oversleeps, having forgotten to set an alarm to remind him to drag himself out of Alfred’s bed before the rest of the house wakes up.

When he finally blinks his eyes open, the sun is high in the sky and his phone tells him it’s almost 11am. Alfred is still snoring at his side, one arm thrown haphazardly across Edward’s chest, and one of his feet hooked around Edward’s ankle. For a moment, Edward wonders if he should extricate himself from Alfred’s hold and leave like he usually does, but one look down at Alfred’s sleeping face melts his heart.

Well, he’s already broken the rule anyway. He might as well wait it out until Alfred wakes up and they can make a plan together for getting Edward out of the house unseen in broad daylight.

Which would have been all well and good, except for the fact that Adelaide, Alfred’s youngest (of many) sister, chooses that exact moment to barge into Alfred’s room without so much as a knock.

“Are you seriously still asleep?” she demands, the door bouncing off the wall behind her with a dull thud.

Alfred stirs at the sound, stealing his arm back from Edward’s chest to throw over his eyes and block out the morning light, while Edward tries to shrink down into the mattress, not feeling too confident about his other options for hiding right now.

Adelaide is fearsome thing to behold. Also an actress, though not quite as high profile as her brother, she’s best known for her role as the ruthless Anne Bonny in a critically acclaimed period drama about pirates, and she certainly lives up to the part.

“Dad wanted us all up and dressed to decorate the house an hour ago,” she continues, undeterred by Alfred’s lack of response.

Edward, for his part, is wondering if she’s even noticed him, though it’s hard to imagine how she wouldn’t have. Either way, she’s remarkably unfazed.

As if she’s read his mind, Adelaide’s eyes flicker to him briefly for a moment, her lips twitching into the beginnings of a smirk even as she fights to remain disinterested. “Morning, Edward.”

Alfred reacts to that, dropping his arm back to the mattress and finally opening his eyes, looking over at Edward like he hadn’t quite realised he was still there – though Edward notes with relief that Alfred doesn’t look upset – and then over to Adelaide, confusion written on his face.

“What, did you think we didn’t know?” Adelaide asks, folding her arms across her chest and raising an eyebrow at them. “Dad’s been bitching about someone trampling the Camellias below your window since you got back.”

Edward feels his cheeks burning as Alfred groans and throws his arm back over his eyes.

“Get out,” Alfred grumbles, voice thick and gravelly the way it only ever is when he’s just woken up.

Adelaide, to her credit, is already on her way out, sending them one last glance, eyes glittering with amusement. “I’ll be back if you’re not downstairs in 10 minutes,” she calls as the door swings shut behind her.

Alfred groans, squeezing his arm tightly around his head, before letting it flop back down against the sheets, turning to look at Edward with a sleepy smile.

“Morning,” he murmurs, eyes crinkling at the corners as his smile widens.

It’s moments like these that Edward treasures most, when the veneer of celebrity that Alfred wears when they’re in public fades away, and they’re just two boys sharing a morning. It’s like a glimpse of the life they could have had if-

Edward banishes that thought as fast as it appears. He won’t let it ruin this moment for him.

“Cat’s out of the bag,” he jokes instead, letting his arm fall to rest against Alfred’s hip so he can trace patterns over Alfred’s skin with his thumb.

Alfred hum’s quietly as he stretches, leaning into the touch.

“In the, uh, spirit of people finding out, um,” Edward hesitates, knowing he’s toeing the edges of the circles they’d drawn out in the sand around what was okay and what wasn’t I this thing they’ve started. But Alfred is watching him attentively, so he can’t back down now. “My family are having this, uh, little drinks thing in a couple of days, and if I don’t bring anyone then my mum is going to try and set me up with another one of her co-worker’s sons or something, and they’re all just so _boring_. Fancy saving me?”

Edward hopes against hope that Alfred can’t see how nervous he is, and he hopes Alfred doesn’t think Edward is inviting him to be his famous piece of arm-candy. Truth be told, Edward just wants an excuse to spend the evening hidden in a corner with Alfred, sharing drinks and stolen kisses and conspiratorial whispers and not having to deal with whatever dull lawyer or stockbroker his mum has picked out for him this time.

But Alfred just smiles, and leans in to kiss him quickly. “I’ll be there,” he whispers against Edward’s lips, before leaning back, pushing himself halfway-upright on one hand and running the other through his hair, succeeding only in messing it up even more. “Do you want to come down for breakfast? Apparently my dad objects to your usual exit route,” he teases, and Edward’s heart thumps heavily in his chest.

They get dressed as quickly as they can manage between stolen morning kisses, and make their way downstairs with sheepish smiles to greet Alfred’s family, all of whom welcome them with varying degrees of smugness. Unfortunately, nice as it is to see Alfred’s family again, it reminds Edward of exactly why they hadn’t gotten families involved before now. Suddenly, there are eight more people who are invested in this temporary relationship, and, at his mum’s Christmas drinks on Wednesday, they’ll be adding four more.

Even when they both know this’ll all end in a week’s time.

But Edward grits his teeth and smiles through it. Why ruin the present by worrying about the future, he reminds himself. It’s a bridge he’ll cross when he comes to it.

* * *

Edward is helping his mum set up the last of the nibbles on the coffee table when the doorbell rings. He’d told Alfred it might be best if he showed up early so they could bag him a corner to hide in if he wanted to avoid the attention of his mum’s friends. Alfred, for all his concern about being spotted in public, hadn’t seemed to worried about it, but he’d agreed anyway, and now here he was, right on time, standing outside Edward’s door.

Edward feels a flutter of nerves rise in his stomach as he mutters, “I’ll get it,” to his mum, setting down the plate of miniature mince pies in his hand and making a beeline for the door.

Unfortunately, despite his haste, his brother, Arthur, and sister, Charlotte, still beat him to the door, blocking him from reaching it like they’d planned it.

“Alfred,” Charlotte greets him smoothly. “Long time no see, hm?” Her eyes glitter playfully as she holds out a hand to Alfred, who shakes it with a good-natured smile while Edward shoots him an apologetic look over her shoulder.

“It’s nice to see you two again,” Alfred says, holding his hand out to Arthur in turn, who takes it with a slightly more suspicious look.

“Hopefully by the end of the night I’ll be able to say the same,” Arthur says, his tone friendly despite his icy words.

Alfred, ever the actor, keeps his face perfectly unfazed, though Edward can spot the tightness at the edge of his smile.

“How long are you planning to stick around, Alfred?” Charlotte asks coolly, and Edward decides it’s high time he put an end to this.

“Let’s ease up on the interrogation,” he grumbles, pushing his way past them to reach Alfred.

When he looks back, he sees their matching smirks and he realises the real game here was catching him out, testing the waters of his childhood-crush-turned-adulthood-infatuation, which they’ve very much succeeded in doing.

Edward has been keeping his cards close to his chest as far as the whole situation with Alfred goes. All he’d told them was that they’d been hanging out again, and that he’d invited Alfred to drinks, although the fact that he’d been sneaking back into the house every morning probably spoke for itself about the nature of their relationship.

They’ve been teasing him all day, since he mentioned at breakfast (which he was late for, thanks to Alfred’s profound ability to tempt him back into bed) that he was bringing someone tonight, and now he’s just given them the perfect material to tease him for the rest of the holidays. He’s also certain that they’re not done for the night yet.

He shoots them a lasting glare, before turning his attention back to Alfred as he ushers him past them and into the house.

“Where should I…” Alfred trails of, gesturing to his coat as he shrugs it off.

“Oh, I can-” Edward takes it from him, hanging it on one of the hooks by the door and stoically ignoring the pointed titters from his siblings, who are still loitering by the door. Frankly, neither of them have dates, so, as far as he’s concerned, he’s a step ahead of them.

Alfred smiles gratefully at him, and Edward tries not to get too distracted by how dapper he looks in an simple button-down and jeans which probably cost more than Edward’s entire wardrobe. 

“Edward, darling, what are you wearing?” Alfred asks, to add insult to injury.

“It’s a Christmas jumper!” he responds indignantly, following Alfred’s disdainful look down to his chest. Really, he knows it’s not high-fashion like the clothes Alfred wears but it’s a Christmas jumper. It’s not supposed to be fashionable, it’s supposed to be festive.

Alfred surveys the jumper in question, with sequined antlers and a bright red pompom in the middle for Rudolph’s nose. “It’s an abomination. You’d look far better without it.”

“I’m not wearing anything underneath,” Edward huffs.

Alfred places one hand on Edward’s chest, smirking as he looks up at him, head tilted coquettishly. “Precisely,” he purrs.

Edward can faintly hear Arthur and Charlotte making gagging noises over the ringing sound of blood rushing through his ears as his face flushes.

He splutters wordlessly for a few moments, before he’s interrupted by his mum calling to him from the living room.

“Edward, stop loitering in the hallway! Come in and introduce us!”

It takes Edward a moment to remember he’s meant to be taking Alfred to re-meet his parents after all these years, and not whisking him upstairs to ravish him in his childhood bedroom.

He takes a small, preparatory breath to compose himself, before taking Alfred’s hand and leading him in to where his mum is still fussing over the nibbles while his dad pours two glasses of wine at the make-shift bar on the kitchen counter. He really hopes his blush isn’t too obvious.

“Mum, you’ll probably remember, this is-“

“Alfred Paget!” she cuts him off, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.

Edward winces. He probably ought to have warned Alfred that his mum was something of a fan.

“Oh, I just absolutely adored you in Dorian Gray, you were so _wonderful_ , I-“

“Mum,” Edward cuts her off gently before she can frighten Alfred off with her excited rambling, giving her a pointed look when her eyes flicker over to him.

“Sorry, sorry, I hope I’m not being rude,” she apologises quickly. “Only, I might have appreciated a little _warning_.” She fixes Edward with a pointed look of her own, and he shrinks slightly. She has a point. Mentioning that the “date” he was bringing was not just an old friend but a pretty big celebrity might have been pertinent information, in hindsight.

“Not at all, Mrs Drummond.” Alfred gives her a genuine smile.

She blushes at that, which Edward is more than slightly mortified by. “Please, call me Frances,” she insists. Is she _batting her eyelashes_? Edward might just need to jump out of the nearest window.

Alfred chuckles easily, before proffering a bottle of wine with a ribbon tied around the neck that Edward hadn’t even noticed he was carrying. “I brought this for you, is there somewhere I can put it?”

“Oh, thank you so much,” Edward’s mum enthuses, taking the bottle and admiring it for a moment, before Edward gives a small, pointed cough. “I can, um, I can find somewhere for it. Thank you again,” she says, still blushing as she hurries off to the kitchen.

Edward shoots Alfred another apologetic look, but, before he can say anything, his dad is wandering over with a glass of wine, the one for Edward’s mum set on the windowsill for her.

Edward is bracing himself for another awkward remark – especially since his Dad, having taken a bit longer than the rest of the family to reckon with Edward’s coming out, was still a little weird whenever Edward mentioned men he was dating – but instead he just gives them a tentative smile.

“Can I get you boys anything to drink?” he asks, nodding back over to the array of alcohol laid out on the kitchen counter.

“What would you recommend?” Alfred asks in response.

Edward’s dad is something of a gin fanatic, and absolutely delights in discussing and recommending the different gins in his collections, and what they should be drunk with, and what garnishes to add. Edward knows he’d mentioned it in passing, but he’s surprised Alfred had remembered.

His dad leads Alfred off, talking eagerly about floral notes and different kinds of tonic, and Edward shoots him a grateful look which Alfred accepts with a tiny, almost imperceptible nod before turning his attention back to the conversation.

Arthur and Charlotte slink up next to him while he’s preoccupied watching Alfred listen attentively to his dad.

“Nice boyfriend you’ve got there,” Arthur goads.

“He’s not my-“ Edward cuts himself off when he realises he’s about to show his cards again. “Shut up,” he says instead, ignoring the smug looks they exchange.

* * *

Edward has him hidden away in a shadowy corner, and is keeping him well supplied with drinks and nibbles as they hang back from the crowd, to have their own quiet moments, away from the buzz of everyone else catching up and mingling.

Alfred had thought Edward was being a bit overcautious to begin with, but, if Edward’s mum’s reaction was anything to go by, Alfred suspects her friends might recognise him in an instant, which doesn’t quite fit the image of the “low profile holiday” he’d promised his publicist. So, for once, he’s quite happy to stay away from the main buzz of the party, especially since Edward is his partner in crime.

Edward’s brother and sister come and go and make small talk with him while subtly needling him for information. Alfred can tell they’re trying to look out for their brother, which he can’t help but find sweet. Unfortunately, it also sets him on edge, knowing without a doubt that feelings are going to get hurt when he leaves again, just like they were last time. Even if they’re just his own.

And, with the clock ticking down, there’s only so much longer they can ignore it.

He does his best to make a good impression, regardless. He talks to Edward’s dad about his gin collection, trying a different blend each time he needs a new drink, and he talks to Edward’s mum’s about the roles he’s played, and he answers all of Arthur’s and Charlotte’s questions, no matter how pointedly intrusive, as honestly and openly as he can, and he does it all for the grateful smile Edward gives him.

Alfred knows Edward’s family is important to him, and he knows how much Edward had struggled when his dad couldn’t come to terms with Edward being gay right away. They were only 17 years old – it feels like a lifetime ago now – when Edward had come out to his family, but Alfred can still remember Edward’s voice down the phone when he’d called him in the middle of the night and asked him to come and pick him up.

Edward had spent the next few agonising days sleeping over at Alfred’s, not knowing if he was even welcome back, relying on texts from Arthur and Charlotte to gauge the situation, until his dad had finally called him and asked him to come home. It had still taken a while for things to settle completely, and there had been other hard times and sleepless nights in the process, but, from the looks of it, things are good between them now.

And Alfred knows how important that is, and how hard Edward had worked for it to even be possible.

So he puts in the effort, even though he’s leaving in four days. Because it matters to Edward.

Eventually, Edward is dragged away from him when his mum asks if he’d play them all something on the piano. And Alfred’s certainly not going to object – he hasn’t heard Edward play since they were 18, hadn’t even thought it might be something he’d keep up after he left school.

But Edward sits down at the piano, and it’s like his whole body changes, his posture shifting and relaxing, like it’s the only place he really feels at ease. The only other time Alfred’s seen him look so comfortable is on sleepy mornings in his bed, in those rare, beautiful moments where nothing else in the world exists beyond the two of them.

He plays without any sheet music, complex and beautiful and captivating, and a reverent silence settles over the rest of the room, and Alfred realises he isn’t the only one being sucked into Edward’s performance. For a moment, he feels a spark of jealousy, knowing that this is a moment he has to share with an audience, before he remembers that it’s _him_ who’ll be sleeping in Edward’s bed tonight, _him_ who will get to peel Edward out of that godawful Christmas jumper, and _his_ lips Edward will kiss as he turns out the light.

For four more days.

The song ends too soon, leaving in its wake a vacuum which demands applause.

Edward turns, a blush colouring his cheeks at the claps and cheers from around the room, and he nods, modest as ever, and quietly thanks them.

“Will you play us another, dear?” Edward’s mum asks, leaning in close with a hopeful smile.

Edward hesitates for a moment, before his eyes find Alfred’s across the room, asking a silent question.

“Maybe a duet?” Edward asks, eyes not leaving Alfred’s until he smiles, giving a small nod.

Alfred couldn’t deny Edward anything. He might be a little rusty – even though there’s at least three pianos in his LA house – but he’s sure he can muddle through a simple duet, if it means he’ll get to sit, thigh to thigh, with Edward and play with him again like they used to when they were younger.

A hushed whisper makes its way around the room as Alfred emerges from his quiet corner, and he might regret it later, given he’s gone unnoticed so far, but right now he couldn’t give less of a fuck what these strangers are whispering about him.

Edward picks out a piece from the basket of sheet music by the piano, and Alfred is relieved to find that, when he looks at it, it’s familiar. He has the faintest memory of playing it once before with Edward at this exact piano, at least 10 years ago now – maybe more even. Back then, it had just been for the two of them, with no watchful audience to impress. Things had been simpler then in a million different ways. He wonders if that’s why Edward chose it, if he’s remembering that day too.

The piano stool is small, so when Alfred sits down he’s pressed up close to Edward, touching from knee to hip, shoulders and elbows bumping together as they settle into place. Alfred can feel his skin tingling at each point of contact, warmth spreading outwards to fill the rest of his body.

Edward turns to look at him, hands hovering over the keys already, and Alfred gives him a nod, his fingers finding their own keys as Edward smiles and counts them in, slow and steady.

The song passes in a blur Alfred hardly even remembers. He’s fairly certain he hits a few wrong notes, and Edward is definitely having to adjust the tempo to match his slightly erratic playing but it’s just so hard to focus on any of that when he can feel every movement of Edward’s body against his.

They’ve done far more intimate things than playing the piano together in the past week, which is why Alfred is surprised at how flustered he feels by the end of the song. He’s certain it shows when he turns, feeling flushed and a little breathless, to smile gratefully at the crowd behind them, applauding the pair of them. Luckily, everyone turns back to their own conversations, no doubt helped along by Edward’s mum who, bless her heart, steers away a few of her friends who’d been making their way towards him.

He and Edward don’t bother returning to their corner, staying instead on the tiny, slightly cramped piano stool, pressed up against each other. Alfred resists the urge to drop his head onto Edward’s shoulder – it would be rude of him to act like he was falling asleep at Edward’s mum’s party, after all – and instead shuffles round as much as he can manage so they can face each other a little more.

“Y’know,” he says, “one of the projects I’m working on is looking for a pianist to play the love interest.” He half-regrets bringing it up – it definitely crosses all of their unspoken lines surrounding the longevity of this… whatever it is – and maybe this is neither the time nor the place to talk about it, but it’s been eating him up inside for the past week.

Because they both know this isn’t about the part. They both know Edward won’t take it. But that’s not really the question Alfred is asking. What he wants to know, more than anything, is if there’s any part of Edward that might consider coming back to L.A. with him, if he asked. If maybe they could buy a little more time to see where this _thing_ between them could go. If maybe it doesn’t have to end in four days.

“ _Your_ love interest?” Edward asks, tactfully evading the question for a moment.

Alfred suspects he’s stalling to give himself time to decide how to answer.

He plays along. “Unfortunately. You’d have to pretend to like me.” The joke hits a little closer to home than he’d planned.

“What an ordeal,” Edward teases, rolling his eyes affectionately, and realistically Alfred knows Edward wouldn’t turn around and say he actually doesn’t like him, that the past week wouldn’t have happened if Edward didn’t like him, even just a little bit, but he still feels a brief surge of relief, like a soothing balm smoothed over his vulnerabilities.

Brief, however, is the operative word here. Because, after a moment of extra hesitation, Edward finally answers Alfred’s question, in as veiled a way as Alfred had asked it.

“Alfred, I’m not an actor. I’m… I’m a political journalist,” he says, his tone careful and apologetic.

And. Well. That’s that then.

Alfred’s heart sinks, even though he knows he was delusional to have expected any other outcome to this conversation. Did he really think Edward would turn around and drop everything to fly off to LA with him over a Christmas fling?

He doesn’t know why they bother with appearances – maybe because if they were honest with each other then there’d be far more of a conversation to be had here – but he’s determined to keep this one up, so he continues with the joke, like he’s not quietly devastated.

“Guess I’ll have to find someone else who’ll kiss me on camera,” he says, forcing mirth into his voice, which he knows Edward won’t buy, because Edward has always been able to see right through him, even after all this time.

These days, Edward’s one of the only people who even cares enough to look deeper than his manicured exterior. His LA friends don’t particularly mind if he’s pretending, as long as he’s saying what they want to hear. Being home with Edward has made that more apparent than ever.

“You know they were talking about bringing in Timothée Chalamet,” he adds, in an effort to distract them both.

“Oh well I wouldn’t want to deprive you,” Edward teases, knocking their shoulders together. There are lines of concern creasing the corners of his eyes, but he’s clearly sensing Alfred’s desperate need to move on, so he doesn’t ask.

“Please, darling, you’d be _saving_ me,” Alfred says, punctuating his words with an eye-roll.

When Edward excuses himself to refill their drinks a moment later, Alfred finds himself oddly disappointed, half-wishing Edward had pushed it. Perhaps wishing Edward might have asked him the same thing. Perhaps wishing Edward might return the favour and show a couple of his cards too.

He’s known it for a while now, that he wants so desperately to stay here in this beautiful, peaceful Christmas with Edward for as long as he can, and the only thing stopping him is the knowledge that he has a career he has to go back to. There are contracts he’s signed, commitments he’s made, people counting on him for their next pay-check. And the terrifying thing is that, if Edward asked him to stay – no matter how veiled in absurdity – he’d forget all of that and say yes.

Which is why half of him has been praying for the last week that Edward won’t ask, while the other half desperately wishes he would.

But Edward, bless his heart, won’t do it. Because Alfred had asked him not to. He’d known Edward was awake when he asked, but he’d wanted Edward to have the choice to ignore it, to ignore the sincerity, the vulnerability, the quiet desperation.

But Edward was never one for pretending. He’d heard it, and so he wouldn’t ask, regardless of whether or not he wanted Alfred to stay a little longer.

Perhaps, instead, it’s time Alfred took matters into his own hands.

* * *

Alfred hovers near the door, scanning the constant flow of arrivals for the only face he really wants to see tonight.

He knows it’s silly – he and Edward had already spent the whole day together at the village Christmas fair – but, after they’d parted ways to get ready for the infamous Paget Christmas Eve Party, Alfred had finalised a decision that had left him buzzing with nervous energy.

It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that he’d been drinking since midday, when they’d had their first glass of mulled wine at the Christmas fair, and had kept their glasses topped up as they made their way around the craft stalls and themed games. Alfred had poured as much money as he could without getting recognised (especially since he’d forgotten to bring his glasses to disguise himself) into the local businesses and craftspeople, buying knitted jumpers and handmade notebooks until he had more bags than he could carry and he’d had to pass some of them to Edward.

Edward had also dedicated himself to winning at least one of the (no doubt rigged) games, and had relentlessly played a ring-toss game until he’d won a large, stuffed brussels sprout with a smiley face embroidered on the front, which he’d promptly presented to Alfred. Alfred taken it with some light teasing to mask how flustered he actually was by the idea of Edward winning him a prize, and it now sat, pride of place, on his bed.

His family had teased him mercilessly when he’d walked in the door with it, but he couldn’t particularly bring himself to care. In fact, their words had fallen on deaf ears for the rest of the day, even as they poked fun at him for waiting anxiously at the door for Edward to show up. He was walking on air.

Finally, at long last, he caught sight of Edward’s familiar curls, and he was weaving through the crowd towards him before he could stop and remind himself to play it at least kind of cool.

“There you are.” He grins as he bounds over to Edward, taking his hand instinctively when he finally reaches him. “You’re late.”

Edward freezes, a note of panic in his eyes. “The invite said to arrive between 8 and 8.30, and it’s 8.29-“

Alfred cuts him off by squeezing his hand and giving him an affectionate eye-roll. “I was kidding.”

Edward’s expression softens and he leans forward to peck Alfred quickly on the cheek. Alfred’s heart flutters in his chest at the casual intimacy of it.

“You look especially dashing tonight,” Alfred says, looking Edward up and down and relishing in the sight of him in a well-tailored suit. The fact that everyone in the room isn’t gathered around them trying to get a piece of him is, as far as Alfred is concerned, absolutely absurd, although also very much welcome. He’d rather not have to bring out his jealous side. 

“You look wonderful too, as always,” Edward says, his cheeks a little flushed from the compliment Alfred had given him.

His mouth is open like he wants to say something else, but, before he can, his brother Arthur comes up behind him, and Alfred is forced to remember that Edward’s family is with him too.

“Looks like someone’s been caught under the mistletoe,” Arthur teases.

Alfred splutters for a moment – he doesn’t remember anyone putting up mistletoe when they were decorating the house for the party, but Arthur points up to a the space above their heads and, sure enough, there’s a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.

Alfred’s younger brother George appears out of nowhere to join the fun, nudging Alfred in Edward’s direction with a smug look. Alfred is fairly certain that his and Edward’s siblings being under the same roof is a recipe for disaster.

“It’s tradition, Alfred,” George teases, and Alfred shoots him a glare more for being a dick than for making him kiss Edward under the mistletoe. Unsurprisingly, kissing Edward is about the furthest thing from an irritant.

Alfred turns back to Edward, whose eyes are sparkling with laughter, and tugs him down for a quick, chaste kiss – Edward’s parents are right there, after all – before nodding quickly at George and Arthur, and tugging Edward off into the crowd to find the drinks table and get as far away from his brother as possible.

Unfortunately, however, it seems that there’s more than one sprig of mistletoe planted around the house this evening, and he and Edward seem to find every single one. Every time they pause, as they make laps around the room to chat to the various party goers, one of Alfred’s siblings (and even Edward’s on occasion – it seems they’re in on this too) pops up out of nowhere to point out a well-hidden bundle of mistletoe dangling above their heads.

To make matters worse, nobody else seems to fall into the same traps. In fact, Alfred’s fairly certain that this is a plan specifically concocted by his and Edward’s families to fuck with them.

He tries checking the ceiling before they stop anywhere, but it always seems to appear a moment later when one of their siblings taps on his shoulder to point it out. He also tries avoiding their families – he’s half-convinced that each other them is keeping watch over a different section of the room – but they still manage to find them anyway.

And it wouldn’t usually matter, because this is _Edward_ and it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy kissing him, but he’s got some pretty big news that he’s been trying to work up to telling him and he can’t even hold a casual conversation with him this evening because his family is, apparently, dead set on making his life miserable.

Eventually, after what feels like the hundredth time they’ve been caught under the mistletoe, this time by his sister Mary, who looks well on her way to drunk already even though it’s only 9pm, Alfred gives a frustrated sigh and turns to Edward.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks.

Edward huffs out a laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles. “Sure. Lead the way,” he replies.

Their hands are still laced together, so Alfred tugs him through the crowd towards the door that leads out to the garden, longing for some fresh air away from the hustle and bustle of the party.

They meander through the garden, hand in hand, in comfortable silence, which Alfred breaks occasionally to point out the flower beds his dad is most proud of, and his mum’s flourishing vegetable patch, and the old tyre swing they’d spent hours on as kids that probably wasn’t safe for use anymore.

Eventually, they reach the slightly rickety gazebo in a far corner of the garden, and it’s cold outside without a warm jacket, and there’s frost already forming on the grass, but Edward’s hand is warm in his, and the music from the party echoes softly in the background, and there are fairy lights twinkling around the gazebo and the nearby trees, and Alfred wouldn’t trade this moment for anything.

Just when he thinks he might finally have worked up the courage to admit what he’s been trying to spit out all evening, Edward steps back from him, their hands outstretched between them.

“Dance with me,” he says, eyes glowing with warmth in the half-light from the gazebo fairy lights.

“What?” Alfred asks, blinking at Edward a few times as he tries to process his request.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not doing this right.” Edward shakes his head with a small smile, before bowing low and pressing a kiss onto the back of Alfred’s hand. “May I have this dance, my dear?”

Alfred’s stutters in his chest as Edward looks up at him from under his lashes, and, _Jesus Fucking Christ_ , he must have done something right in his life to have wound up with this wonderful, gorgeous, ridiculous man.

When Alfred finally regains the use of his voice, he breathes out a soft, barely audible “you may,” and Edward is tugging on his hand to pull him close before he’s even finished speaking, wrapping his free arm around Alfred’s waist as he slips his other hand round to hold Alfred’s properly as they begin to sway in time to the faint music coming from the house.

Alfred places his own hand on the back of Edward’s neck, toying idly with the short strands of hair he finds there as his eyes range across Edward’s face. _This_. How could he ever leave this?

Edward lifts his arm to twirl Alfred slowly, before pulling him close again, but when Alfred looks back there’s a sad twist in the set of his mouth.

“So. You’re leaving pretty soon,” Edward says eventually, and Alfred’s heart twists. “I wouldn’t bring it up, only I’m not sure how much I’ll really see you over the next few days.”

“About that,” Alfred says slowly, trying not to betray himself with an eager smile just yet, even though Edward’s words have just lit his hope on fire. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

He catches the look of panic in Edward’s eyes and realises he could probably have phrased that a little better, given the circumstances, so he decides to put him out of his misery quickly.

“I switched my flight,” he admits, scrunching up his face a little in spite of himself, in case Edward decides to reject him after all. “I’m staying here until after New Year’s.”

“What?” It’s Edward’s turn to blink at him blankly, freezing and putting an abrupt end to their slow swaying. “You’re staying?”

“Yeah, um, I’ve got a while yet before I have to go back for filming, I figured I could spend a little longer here,” Alfred says with a smile and a small shrug, even as his eyes frantically scan Edward’s face for any hint of displeasure.

All he finds is confusion, a small frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Well,” Alfred begins, taking a step closer, “I left LA because I was feeling lost. And when I came back here I bumped into this wonderful guy who reminded me what home felt like.” He squeezes his hand around the back of Edward’s neck just slightly. _For you_ , he thinks, but doesn’t dare admit so transparently. _I’m staying for you_

“You’re staying,” Edward echoes, his hand tightening around Alfred’s waist as his eyes finally focus in on Alfred’s face, a smile finally breaking out across his features and setting Alfred’s heart alight.

“I am.”

Edward grins down at him, tugging him closer. “Does this mean we’ll have to start having all those conversations we’ve been avoiding?”

Alfred laughs, half at the joke, and half at their own ridiculousness. “I think so,” he admits. “But they can wait until tomorrow.”

Edward shakes his head at him with a fond smile, glancing up as he does so. Then, strangely, his eyes fix on something, and he squints up to get a better look at it.

For a moment, Alfred thinks he’s seen a spider, and is fully prepared to evacuate, romantic moment be damned, but then Edward is laughing, still staring up at the ceiling, and it’s Alfred’s turn to be confused.

Edward spots his frown, and is quick to explain. “It looks like your family prepared for every situation.”

Alfred doesn’t understand what he means until he follows Edward’s gaze and spots another godforsaken sprig of mistletoe dangling above them. He’s going to strangle his siblings in the morning, fuck the whole lot of those demons in disguise, but right now it’s a little hard to be angry about it.

Instead, he tightens the arm around the back of Edward’s neck to pull himself in close. “Well, I wouldn’t want to flout tradition,” he murmurs lowly, close enough now to brush their lips together.

Edward closes the distance between them before he’s even finished speaking.

And, for a moment, there is peace.

* * *

Edward wakes on Christmas morning to the sound of a phone ringing.

He doesn’t know who the fuck would call on Christmas morning, especially since, judging by the light just _barely_ starting to creep into the room, it’s _early_ on Christmas morning. But, whoever they are, they can wait, Edward thinks, as he snuggles closer to Alfred – who’s absolutely radiating warmth, even on this cold morning – to go back to sleep for a little longer. _They’ll call back if it’s important_ , he thinks.

Unfortunately for him, they do just that, and, on their third attempt, Edward lets out a groan and rolls away from Alfred’s tangle of limbs to check his phone on the bedside table.

It’s not his, which means it’s Alfred’s, and it’s probably someone in the US who hasn’t worked out time-zones yet, or doesn’t particularly care about them. He’s fairly certain it’s late over there anyway – he’d do the exact maths but his mind is too groggy to work it out -so maybe whoever it is just doesn’t care about sleeping hours full stop.

He nudges Alfred awake, a task in itself given Alfred sleeps like the dead, and the phone is ringing for a fifth time by the time Alfred blinks open his eyes.

“Your phone is ringing,” Edward grumbles. “Make it stop.”

Alfred mutters a few expletives and tries to close his eyes, but Edward pokes him insistently, intent on irritating him until he’s forced to sit up and pick up the phone.

He grimaces, still only half awake, at the phone, before finally answering it.

“Vic?” he says, voice groggy and unimpressed. “What?”

Edward, for his part, flops facedown back into bed, burying his head deeply in the pillow. He likes to think of himself as a morning person, but not _this_ much of a morning person.

“What??” Alfred’s panicked voice ruins any hopes Edward had of getting back to sleep, and when he lifts his head he sees Alfred already starting to pace around the room. “No, no, I was careful, I don’t know how they could’ve-“

Alfred is cut off by whoever is on the other end of the phone – “Vic” – and he listens with pursed lips to what they’re saying, stood stock still with his shoulders set tensely.

“Mmhmm,” he says, nodding sharply, eyes flickering over to Edward and then back to staring at nothing again. “Yeah. Yeah okay. Yeah, I’ll see you soon.” He hangs up the phone with a long sigh and then spends a moment staring at something on his screen, his forehead scrunched up into a tight frown.

He looks a lot more awake than he had two minutes ago, that’s for sure. Edward only wishes he could say the same.

“Everything okay?” Edward asks, rubbing at his eyes and propping himself upright. He doesn’t like the frown on Alfred’s face and he’d really like to resolve whatever issue has come up so they can go back to enjoying their Christmas morning, especially if that involved getting Alfred back into bed.

Alfred’s shoulders seem tense up even more, and he hesitates for a moment, before he sets his jaw and thrusts his phone towards Edward. “Was this you?” he demands.

Edward squints at him for a second, before taking the phone from him and reaching for his glasses on the bedside table so he can take a proper look.

On Alfred’s screen is a photo of the two of them at the Christmas fair yesterday. They’re holding hands, their breath misting in the cold air, and Alfred has his free arm wrapped around the stupid stuffed sprout Edward had won him, and Alfred is grinning up at him with a lovesick look Edward usually doesn’t get to see, because he usually looks away before Edward can catch him.

He swipes to the side and finds another photo from the same day, this time of them kissing, Alfred leaning up on his toes, one arm around Edward’s neck and the other still clutching at the stuffed toy, and Edward has his head ducked down to meet him in a quick kiss.

Edward remembers that kiss. It had tasted like the mulled wine they’d been drinking, and Edward had almost slipped on a patch of ice when Alfred pulled back, and Edward hadn’t even cared about embarrassing himself because it had made Alfred laugh.

It takes him a moment to remember that Alfred had asked him a question, so he looks back up at Alfred, frowning slightly as he tries to remember what it was he’d said. “What?”

“Did you do this?” Alfred asks again. “Did you sell our picture or- or tip someone off or-“

“No!” Edward cuts him off immediately, when he realises what Alfred is suggesting. “Jesus, why would I even- are you serious?” he asks, trying to work out how they went from a peaceful morning to Alfred accusing him of selling them out to the papers. “I would never even think-”

“No,” Alfred stops him, his tense posture deflating as he rubs a hand over his face. “No, I… I know you wouldn’t.” When he looks up, he looks so sad and apologetic that Edward forgives him almost immediately. “You’re one of the only people in my life I can trust not to do that right now,” Alfred admits quietly.

Edward glances back down at the pictures, trying to work out what he should even say right now. He doesn’t know this world – he doesn’t even know what these pictures getting out means for Alfred. In the end, he settles for, “it’s really not so bad,” offering Alfred a half-hearted shrug. It’s just a couple of photos, after all.

“Yeah, for you maybe,” Alfred scoffs, the tension returning to his shoulders. “For now, at least. Until they find your Twitter or Instagram or whatever and start blowing up your notifications with the same hate they’re sending me right now. But for me, this is a PR nightmare, okay, this is exactly what I was trying to avoid, I mean for fuck’s sake I’ve got a _boyfriend_!”

Alfred falters when he realises what he’s just said.

Edward’s mind sticks on that word. _Boyfriend_. Serves him right for not keeping up with Alfred over the years. Serves him right for respecting Alfred’s privacy so much that he hadn’t even thought to check that he was actually single. Serves him right for not realising Alfred _obviously_ had a perfect celebrity boyfriend to go with those perfect celebrity friends he’d left behind in LA.

“Well, I don’t,” Alfred backtracks, hurrying to correct his mistake. “I- I broke up with him before I came here, and it’s actually the reason I came home in the first place, but we haven’t gone public with the breakup yet and as far as everyone in my Twitter mentions knows, I’m cheating on him with you,” he rambles, clearly trying to explain himself.

Edward’s mind, however, has all but shut down at this point, and all he can do is stare at the loose thread on Alfred’s duvet cover. All that talk about staying, and having a chance to make this go somewhere, and Edward had only ever been a rebound to him. A distraction.

Alfred, unaware of Edward’s brain freeze, rambles on. “This was all a huge mistake, I never should’ve come back here. I need to leave, but I’m gonna fix all this when I get back to LA and-“

“LA?” Edward asks, forced back to his senses with a jolt. When he looks back up, Alfred is already shoving things into a bag, working with the quick efficiency of someone who’s used to packing up in a hurry.

“Yeah. Yeah, I need to get out of here before they trace my steps back to you, and I need to clear up this mess before I start losing the jobs I’ve got lined up because I’ve got a ‘bad image,’” Alfred says, shaking his head as he goes, his mind clearly fixed in problem-solving mode.

Not 12 hours ago, Alfred had told Edward he was staying with him, _for_ him. And now, already, he was getting ready to leave again. And there was nothing Edward could do but watch it happen.

“I’m gonna fix this,” Alfred looks up at Edward, as he zips up his bag. “If anyone finds you just, um, just turn off your phone, okay? I’ll fix it and then you can go back to your anonymous little life as the guy who fucked Alfred Paget one Christmas.”

“Alfred wait-“ Edward calls out, scrambling out of bed to try and reach him before the door swings shut behind him, to try and tell him that that was never what this was about for him, to ask if maybe they can talk about this for a second before Alfred disappears out of his life again.

But he’s already gone.

* * *

So it’s fine. Edward’s fine.

Yeah, Alfred left in a huff after photos of them together got leaked, and yeah, Edward’s getting texts from everyone he knows asking if it’s really him, and yeah, he’s starting to get some pretty nasty DMs on Twitter because apparently everyone else has worked out that it’s him too.

And yeah, he’s not heard from Alfred since he left, but he’s probably on a plane right now, and he’s probably talking to his publicist about the “PR nightmare” that is their relationship – if you could even call it that – going public before Alfred had announced that he’d broken up with the boyfriend he’d neglected to tell Edward about.

Edward knows they’d been steering clear of romantic history and personal lives but that seemed like information he might have wanted to mention to the guy he was sleeping with. Maybe he could’ve given Edward a heads up that if it were to get out that they were together then people would assume that Edward was the other woman or whatever, and they could have been more careful.

But he hadn’t.

Edward finally gets home just as everyone else in his house is starting to get up. He’d had to walk because his parents had driven him over for the party and left him there to stay the night with Alfred, under the assumption Alfred would give him a lift back. He’d also had to let himself out of the Paget house, and unfortunately the whole kerfuffle with Alfred leaving had woken up the rest of the family, so they’d all watched him go with sympathetic smiles that had left him feeling even worse by the time he reached the door.

His parents will be getting up to make a nice Christmas breakfast for all of them, and Arthur and Charlotte will be rifling through the stockings their parents still put out for them, but Edward just walks straight through the door and up the stairs, ignoring his family as they call him over into the kitchen and making a beeline for his bedroom.

He’s barely even out of his coat and shoes before he’s curled up on his bed and pulling the duvet up and around his chin. Alfred had slept over the night before last, after his mum’s Christmas drinks, and the pillow still smelled like him. Edward can’t tell if that makes it better or worse, but he’s crying either way.

Charlotte comes and knocks on his door a little later with some breakfast and leaves it outside, and then retreats quickly to give him some space. By now, she’s probably heard what happened.

Good. It means Edward won’t have to tell them.

Eventually, after he’s all cried out and he’s left feeling hollowed out and empty, he emerges from his room. It’s still Christmas, after all, and he doesn’t want to ruin the day for anyone else. He might as well spend it with his family. It’s definitely better than spending the day alone.

He still hasn’t heard from Alfred.

When he gets downstairs, his family is sitting around the kitchen table, whispering in hushed tones over cups of tea. He hears his name, before Arthur spots him hovering in the doorway and shushes them all.

“Edward,” he says, his concern practically audible, “you’re up.”

Edward knows he looks like shit. He’s been crying for past few hours and he’s still wearing the pyjamas he’d borrowed from Alfred because he hadn’t bothered to change before he left, he’d just chucked his fancy clothes from last night in a plastic bag and left.

“How are you, sweetheart?” his mum asks tentatively. “Do you- we could get you some tea? Or something to eat?”

“Can we just pretend nothing happened?” Edward finally croaks out. Shit. He hadn’t realised his voice would come out sounding so raw.

His family share a few worried glances that Edward does his best to ignore, and then his mum turns back to him with that same worried, tense smile.

“Of course, dear. We were thinking of doing presents in a minute?” she says warily, like she’s afraid he might shatter at any moment. Which might not be an entirely incorrect assumption, but being treated like he’s breakable only makes him feel more fragile.

He wishes they’d just act like nothing was wrong.

Edward spends the rest of the day on autopilot, unwrapping presents and ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the gifts like he would if he was in a better mood, helping his mum cook dinner by peeling the potatoes and chopping the vegetables, watching shitty Christmas TV and pretending to enjoy it and trying to ignore when they accidentally flick to a channel showing one of Alfred’s movies.

He excuses himself for an early night not long after that.

Charlotte catches him by the elbow at the living room door, and he turns to face her with a weary smile.

“I know you might not want to hear it,” she begins, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth as she pauses, “but I saw on Twitter that Alfred is doing a livestream at 5 tomorrow to clear things up. I’m guessing you’ve not been on your phone much, so I thought I’d let you know, in case you wanted to watch it.” She swallows and ducks her head, shuffling her feet awkwardly. “And, um, I’m here if you need to talk, or whatever, you know.”

Edward’s smile feels even tighter with the news about Alfred, but he softens a little at Charlotte’s attempt to help. “Thanks, Lottie.” He bumps their shoulders together, doing his best to muster up a slightly more genuine smile for her.

He still cries himself to sleep that night.

* * *

Edward tunes in to Alfred’s livestream in the end. He wasn’t planning on it – if anything he’d actually decided against it. But Arthur and Charlotte were both out seeing friends, and his parents were watching a shmaltzy rom-com he really wasn’t in the mood for, and he’d sort of just… caved.

He turns on his phone for the first time since yesterday, having eventually taken Alfred’s parting advice, and ignores the immediate onslaught of notifications from all his social media accounts, going straight to Alfred’s Instagram and hovering over the livestream button, before finally clicking.

The stream opens up on Alfred’s face. He’s back in his LA house, presumably, set against a beautiful, immaculately laid out background he’d no doubt spent hours agonising over. His phone is set up on some kind of tripod, to keep the phone steady and perfectly angled, and it looks like he’s some kind of ring-light set up too, just to perfect his set up.

Alfred himself looks like a poster-boy for deliberately messy, in a way that feels distinctly different from his usual appearance. It definitely looks like he’s been seen to by a stylist to fix up his hair and his clothes so he looks perfectly relaxed and casual, without looking sloppy. Or maybe this is just the flipside of Alfred that he hasn’t seen yet. The cool, casual LA Alfred, who dresses up in fancy clothes devoid of character and sets up ring-lights for casual livestreams.

Edward hates it.

He’s beginning to wonder if this was a mistake, and if he should just leave before he starts feeling even worse than he already does, but then Alfred, finally, starts to speak.

“Um, hi everyone,” he begins with a wave to the camera. “I just wanted to hop on here and address some of the rumours flying around about me right now. Um, quite a few of you have been saying some, uh, pretty nasty things about me on Twitter, which, you know, isn’t great,” he shrugs, mouth twisting into a forced smile as he tries to play it off with a laugh.

Edward can see right through it. He hates that too.

“I guess the main thing to say is that Alex and I split up,” Alfred continues. “It was nothing to do with everything that’s come out over the last couple of days, um, we broke up before Christmas, which is why I flew back to England in the first place, for some post-breakup R&R with my family. So, I didn’t cheat on him, despite what everyone’s been saying.”

Edward can’t quite shake the feeling that Alfred is reading from a carefully curated script, designed to maximise sympathy and minimise backlash. Which, from what he’s heard about Alfred’s publicist, might well be entirely true.

“I’m not gonna get into all the details about the guy in the photos, because I respect his privacy, but he was just an old friend I reconnected with over the holidays,” Alfred continues.

Edward’s jaw clenches tight, the words “just an old friend” rolling around in his head like a marble down a spiral track.

“It really wasn’t anything serious, and I hope you guys will take my word for it and not go seeking him out to harass him-“

Edward exits the stream, not wanting to hear whatever else Alfred has to say about him. 

Well. That settles things then. An old friend. Nothing serious. Alfred’s clearly already packaged their Christmas fling into nice little boxes with convenient labels. Maybe it’s high time Edward got over his silly attachments and did the same.

He turns his phone off and chucks it over to the other side of the room.

* * *

New Year’s Eve rolls around eventually and finds Edward still wallowing, despite his family’s best efforts to coax him out of his room for jigsaw puzzles and shopping the sales and trips to his favourite cafés. He’d refused them all.

It’s been four days since Alfred had left, already half the time they’d even been together again, but Edward still can’t bring himself to venture back out into the village which has been repopulated with memories of Alfred, haunting him wherever he goes. He’d been able to ignore Alfred’s ghost right up until the moment he’d walked back into his life again. Now, he waits around every corner, on every road, in every shop and café they’d visited in the eight days they’d been together again.

Eight days. As that really all they’d had?

Edward’s not due back at work for another week, but he thinks maybe he needs to leave this village and it’s ghosts. He’ll be going back to an empty flat, but at the very least it’ll be a flat Alfred has never set foot in; a table he’s never eaten at, a piano he’s never played, a bed he’s never slept in. The change of scenery will help, Edward thinks.

He’ll drive back on New Year’s Day, he decides, much to his parent’s dismay. They try and talk him into staying just a little bit longer – Arthur and Charlotte are staying until the 3rd, maybe they can all head off together – but he holds his ground. He’s tired of seeing Alfred in every room he walks into.

He might as well have left a day early, though, because his family are all going to the Paget’s New Year’s Eve party. He knows Alfred won’t be there, and that he’s probably a glitzy LA party hosted by one of his glamorous celebrity friends, but Edward just can’t bear the thought of going back to that house and having to face Alfred’s family again and having to relive that wonderful Christmas Eve, when the possibilities had seemed endless, before everything went wrong.

But he waves off his family’s concerns and offers to stay home with him, and he sends them all on their way, preparing himself for another night of pyjamas and shitty re-runs. He debates turning his phone back on for the first time since boxing day but decides against it. He knows a lot of the fuss has probably died down by now, but anonymous strangers on the internet aren’t the only ones he’s avoiding.

He doesn’t want to see any texts or missed calls or voicemails from Alfred. Or, worse, the total lack thereof. The decision to not even acknowledge Edward anymore. Frankly, he’d rather not know either way. Not yet, at least.

Instead, he pours himself a large glass of wine and settles down on the sofa to flick through the tv channels until he finds something that takes his fancy. He’s in the middle of a David Attenborough documentary he’s already seen at least three times when the doorbell rings, interrupting his quiet evening.

He grumbles to himself as he sets down his glass and walks to the door, expecting to find Arthur or Charlotte on the other side coming to get something they’d forgotten or trying one last time to drag him out.

What he’s not expecting is to see Alfred stood outside his door, shivering without a winter jacket to keep him warm, looking incredibly sheepish.

“Um. Hi,” he says, tentative and a little hesitant.

Edward has to press his eyes closed and shake his head to make sure he’s not imagining him, that he’s not just another ghost. “You’re not in LA,” he states, trying to connect the dots in his head.

“No,” Alfred answers with a wry smile. “Um, I was, but…” he trails off with a shrug. “You’re not at the party,” he adds, and it’s then that Edward realises Alfred is dressed to the nines in a gorgeous suit - presumably having come straight from his family’s New Year’s Eve party.

“No,” Edward echoes. He’s acutely aware of the fact that he, by comparison, is wearing ratty old trackies with stains on them, and a faded t-shirt with more holes in it than he can count. 

Alfred chews his lip in the silence that follows, before he speaks again. “I tried to call you.”

“I… turned my phone off,” Edward answers lamely. He supposes that answers his earlier dilemma, then. Still, he can’t work out if it’s a good or a bad thing that Alfred tried to call. That he’s here, now. It all hinges on what it is Alfred has to say.

Alfred nods slowly. “Probably for the best.”

“I saw your livestream,” Edward states, coaxing Alfred towards answering the question he doesn’t dare ask. “Nothing serious, huh?”

Alfred leaving a party and showing up on his doorstep might be a nice gesture, but Edward’s not so keen on letting his guard down that easily.

Alfred swallows. “I know how that sounds, but I was just saying that to try and get people off your back,” he explains, words measured and careful. “If I’d gone on there and said how I really felt, I knew they’d never leave you alone. Plus, I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me again,” he adds, eyes flickering up to Edward’s and then down to the floor.

Edward tilts his head to the side, watching Alfred carefully. Frankly, he’s going to need a little more than that.

“How you really felt?” Edward prompts him gently.

Alfred looks back up at him, lips pressed into a resigned smile and eyes soft as he gives a small shrug and lets out a long, shuddering breath. And that look alone seems to say everything Edward needs to know. There are some things that it’s perhaps too early to admit out loud, but Edward can feel it in the weight of Alfred’s eyes locking with his.

“So, um, I’ve been thinking,” Alfred begins slowly, taking a tentative step in Edward’s direction. “I’ve only got a month or so of filming left, and then, um, I was thinking maybe I should take a break, for a while. Maybe spend some more time at home.” His eyes lock with Edward’s, just like they had on Christmas Eve.

A million things unsaid, and only one question Edward wants to ask.

He musters up every last scrap of courage he has to ask, “why?”

Alfred seems to smile in spite of himself, eyes flickering down to where his feet are shuffling self-consciously against the bottom step leading up to Edward’s door. “Because I told this amazing guy that I would stay, and then I left. And I really wanted to make that up to him.”

Edward inhales sharply, feeling the full weight of Alfred’s offer settling on his shoulder, the echo of those still unspoken words bouncing around them. _For you. I’ll stay for you._

He swallows. “You can’t ‘take a break’ indefinitely.” He doesn’t want to pick holes in Alfred’s plans, doesn’t want to ruin this before it’s even really begun, but there’s an aching insecurity in his heart, remembering the last time Alfred had offered to stay. He couldn’t bear to be left behind a third time.

“Well… no,” Alfred admits. “I know there’s more to it, and I know we have a lot to talk about, but I thought maybe it might be… a start.” He looks up at Edward with huge, pleading eyes, and Edward decides it’s his turn to take a leap of faith.

“It’s a start,” he says, crossing the threshold and stepping down so he’s only one step above Alfred. “And who knows,” he adds quietly as he takes another step down so they’re finally level, “I’ve always wanted to visit LA.”

He can see the exact moment the words, and all their many implications, register with Alfred, as he leaps up and throws his arms around Edward’s neck, pulling his head down until their lips meet.

Maybe he’s lost his mind, building a future around a man who’s been back in his life for less than two weeks, maybe they’re both crazy to drop everything for each other, but there’s a distinct feeling of rightness that settles in his chest at the feeling of Alfred back in his arms, like a piece that’s been missing from him since he let Alfred slip away seven years ago finally falling back into place. There’s nobody else he’d let ruin his five year plan.

As the fireworks start to go off around them to announce the New Year, Edward tugs Alfred in from the cold for a new beginning of their own.

**Author's Note:**

> i thrive on comments and feedback y'all
> 
> also im legit super nervous to post again after so long and i've got this huge project i've been writing for forever that i'm hoping to start posting in january so a little love and encouragement,,, wouldn't go amiss,,, 
> 
> also if you spot all the references and easter eggs (hmmm that's not very seasonal, emily) i chucked in here i will send you a thousand telepathic hugs
> 
> legit though thank you so much for reading <3


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